UAE passport becomes more powerful, remains leader in MENA

The United Arab Emirate's passport has gained more power in the last year, while firmly remaining the most powerful passport in the Middle East and North Africa, according to Henley & Partners .

The global residence and citizenship planning giant ranked the UAE passport as the 38th most powerful in the world in its 2016 Visa Restrictions Index, two spots up from last year when it was ranked 40th .

The index is a global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom that their passports allow. It is based on an analysis of global visa regulations, which determines the number of countries a country's citizens can travel to visa-free.

The UAE's improved ranking with a score of 122, signifying visa-free access to 122 countries, is due to the country's recent agreement with the European Union.

The travel agreement allows Emiratis visa-free access to 36 additional countries, including the 26 Schengen area states in the EU, which made the UAE the first Arab country to be given a European visa waiver.

While many other countries in MENA also improved their rankings this year, none of them managed to surpass the UAE, allowing the country's passport to retain its position as the most powerful in the region.

Kuwait's passport was ranked the second most powerful in MENA. The country takes the 57th spot on the index, six places up from its ranking last year.

Qatar's passport was ranked the third most powerful, with the country coming in at number 60, which is six places up from the previous year as well.

Following these countries were Bahrain at 65, Oman at 67, Saudi Arabia at 69, Tunisia at 72, Morocco at 78, Egypt at 88 and Algeria at 89, making the top 10 passports in the MENA region.

The annually published Henley & Partners Visa Restrictions Index is produced in cooperation with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which has the largest database of travel information in the world.

This year's Index offers "an unprecedented and inimitable insight into the development of visa policies" over the course of the last 11 years, according to the firm's official press release .

The Index operates under several assumptions. These include: There are 219 destination countries in total, the amount of nationalities evaluated is 199 and 218 is the maximum attainable score.